Why is WorthPlay so useful for introducing older people to ICT and for educational purposes?

Submitted by juangtirado on Fri, 28/06/2013 - 00:52

We interviewed the teacher of the course to know their opinions on the experience and the WorthPlay platform.

Do you think the WorthPlay platform is easy or difficult to use?“It is very easy to learn how to use it. For this group of people… most of them have never used the computer. And they have succeed in doing it… there is no need for knowing complex tasks… it allows you to do more than you can imagine”

The participants had never used a computer but they enjoyed the activity… why do you think this happened?:“It broke the fear for working with the computer… it allows you to see what can be done in the computer and that you can do it… people enjoyed the activity, having fun with the questions, with the work, with the group… it is not just to avoiding fear. It can be done and I can do it!”

Based on your experience, teaching older people for years, is WorthPlay useful for educational purposes?“It is useful for reviewing one topic… as it is easy for them to prepare and to create the questions. They use the topic they have just learnt about. They could ask the questions between them… so they are reviewing the topics, helping their partners to work”. He also considered that WorthPlay has a huge potential for educational purposes, as students were very exited during this first experience, and commented they were enthusiastic about keep using it: “I have the impression that I am going to use it again… people will remind me to use WorthPlay. Those who have used it will tell me: hey, why don’t we do that again? … it is a way of motivating to work more with this kind of elements -technology- … that this can be done, that they learnt and that they had a nice experience, it is also one stimuli for continue doing it with new people”

In your classes, Worthplay might have disrupted the dynamic of the activities, as the participants were not used to using computers, but we did not observe any of this…“it was useful for changing rhythms in the classroom. To do different activities. Not to do always the same thing … It also allows you to set different difficulty levels… you can include topics with different levels of complexity, depending on how you present the information of the activity… to give initial information and let them research more about it”

Finally, what do you think about providing older people with the opportunity to create contents? Is it good, bad?“It gave more life to the process. And they regarded the contents as their contents… without being aware of… they found themselves immersed in a highly active learning process. I think that is very important”

This report presents cross-cultural experiences of digital game play by older people in Dundee (Scotland). The report summarises the results of sixteen contextual inquiries, a 2-month participant observation study, and an activity of game play and design, all of which carried out in the Dundee User Centre. The report also presents a literature review of game accessibility guidelines.

This report describes the design and development of SAGE, an intelligent game-based adaptation system. SAGE recommends activities to the players based on their playing behaviour. SAGE has been successfully integrated into the WorthPlay platform. This report also gives an overview of previous research on artificial intelligence in digital games, and adaptive games.